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. He did not move.
So I searched him. First from behind, then I rolled him over. His trousers
did not quite match his tunic, and they lacked the braid down the sides that a
proctor's uniform trousers should have. The tunic was not a good fit. His
pockets held a few crowns in paper, a lottery ticket, and five cartridges. These
last were Skoda 6.5 mm longs, unjacketed, expanding, used in pistols, tommies,
and rifles-and illegal almost everywhere. No wallet, no IDs, nothing else.
He needed a bath.
I rocked back and stood up. "Keep your gun on him, Gwen. I think he's a
nightwalker."
"I think so, too. Please look at this, sir, while I keep him covered." Gwen
pointed at a pistol lying on the deck.
Calling it a "pistol" dignifies it more than it deserves. It was a lethal
weapon, homemade, of the category known traditionally as "nimble gun." I studied
it as thoroughly as I could without touching it. Its barrel was metal tubing so
light in gauge that I wondered whether or not it had ever been fired. The
handgrip was plastic, ground or whittled to conform to a fist. The firing
mechanism was concealed by a metal cover held in place by (believe me!) rubber
bands. That it was a single-shot weapon seemed certain. But with that flimsy
barrel it could turn out to be a one-shot as well; it seemed to me to be almost
as dangerous to the user as to his target
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